Jan Toorop / water color, ink / 28.5x17 cm

Top piece! Superb watercolor / ink drawing by Jan Toorop. Approx. 1900. View of St-Patricks mountain in Ireland.

Jan Toorop spent his childhood on Java. In 1892 he moved to the Netherlands. He took a drawing course at the Polytechnic School in Delft (1876-1879) and then studied at the Rijksacademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (1880-1882) and at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs in Brussels (1882-1885). In Brussels he became involved with the artist group Les XX from 1884. Toorop was sensitive to influences; the wide variety of forms of expression and techniques attests to this. Thus he developed in a Symbolist direction through Realism, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism after 1890. He drew on literary and musical sources and from distant cultures. The image of women played an important role in its rather inscrutable symbolism. His drawings and lithographs are characterized by the fluid linearity of Art Nouveau. In 1905 he converted to Catholicism, after which he painted almost exclusively religious subjects and portraits in a somewhat more geometric style.